The War to End All Wars?
The First World War was also called"The Great War",because nothing so terrible on such a great scale had ever been experienced before.It was also known as"the war to end all wars",which of course was later proven not to be the case at all.
The First World War was the result of conflicts between the great European powers.When the war began in 1914,most soldiers thought they would be returning home in just a few months.Soon they understood how wrong they had been.The use of machine guns and other powerful weapons meant that the casualties were beyond anyone's imagination.At one battle,for example,the British Army suffered more than 57,000 casualties in a single day.Total casualties for the entire war numbered around 40 million people.
The Second World War was to be the biggest and deadliest conflict in the history of the world,involving more than 30 countries.Its six years of fighting resulted in the deaths of around 60 million people.
The Second World War was a war in which China played a major role.China was the main battlefield in Asia in the war against fascism,with the Chinese efforts contributing greatly towards the final victory.Chinese soldiers successfully resisted some 1.5 million Japanese soldiers.Elsewhere in Asia,tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers fought alongside American and British troops.The cost in lives was great.Over the course of 14 years of war with Japan,from 1931 to 1945,China suffered a total of over 35 million military and civilian casualties.
It has now been more than 100 years since the end of the First World War,and decades since the Second.Remembering the destruction,people across the world hope for a lasting peace between nations.
Translation to be continued~